Question

Why is societies limited access to higher education a problem ?

Answer 1

• The rising cost of a college education and limited access to financial aid may create a less productive workforce and steeper wealth inequity.Students with low-income parents are discovering that it is more difficult to find funds to pay for a college education now compared to students of similar economic backgrounds in the 1980s.
• Over the last two decades, more higher-paying jobs required a college degree. The higher demand for a college education led universities to increase tuition fee. At the same time, money available through government loan programs remained flat or, when adjusting for in inflation, declined.
• Constraints on financial aid could have far-reaching economic impacts. When poor but intelligent workers are unable to earn a college degree, their career choices are restricted.And lack of collge education could lead to higher rates of unemployment,higher crime rates,lack of participation in voting,high poverty rates since no degree means no job and also create adverse effects physical and mental health of the individuals.
• The USA has developed extreme levels of economic and social inequality, social mobility is declining, and higher education has been unable to compensate in fact, higher education itself is becoming more stratified.The upper middle class dominates access to the top private universities, participation rates have stopped growing, and graduation rates among low-income families are very disappointing. Inequality is also increasing in Canada as well.
• Most people earn most of their income from their job. Only the top 0.1 per cent earn the majority of their income from capital (wealth) such as government bonds, shares, investments, and property. Wealth is much more concentrated than labour incomes. Access to good education depends increasingly on the income, education and wealth of one’s parents.This is true at both the school and college levels.
• In higher education, people’s unequal capacity to pay and to compete for selective places has been joined by increasing stratification among the institutions themselves. The institutional hierarchy is getting steeper.
• Education is a matter of social relations. We are all affected by the number and value of high quality educational places and by what governs access to those places. We need to assert the role of higher education as a public good and as a response to social and economic inequality, rather than as a mechanism for enhancing inequality, or a dead end with limited capacity to lift the individual and collective position.
• We need to build more egalitarian higher education systems with a more broadly distributed capacity to create value. This will strengthen the relation between higher education and social outcomes and opportunities. There needs to be fairer selection into elite institutions, and the elimination of financial barriers to attend those institutions.